Then again, maybe I’m just desperate to cling to anything that might humanize him.
It doesn’t feel as if it can get any worse as he pumps in and out of me, relentlessly fucking me with the barrel. It can’t get worse because he’s got it angled in such a way that it keeps rubbing against some part of me that makes my body seize and tense, that makes my wetness pool around the barrel.
He knows exactly what he’s doing.
My inner walls spasm around his gun as he drives it hard inside me, and I don’t even think as I grind back to meet his every thrust, until the degrading orgasm has finished ripping through me, and I sag against the wall, panting hard.
He withdraws the gun and falls against me, crushing me, his hard, warm arms enfolding me just like they did that time when he brought me home on his bike.
Those arms are a lot harder, a lot bigger now, and a lot warmer, despite the cold air. But they still feel like him, and right now, in spite of everything, I wish he’d whip me around and kiss me.
I wish he were my silent protector again.
Instead of my monster.
Too soon, he pushes off me, as if he regrets touching me, as if the feel of my body disgusts him.
Then he growls, “Stop snooping around. Or you’re dead.”
Before I’ve even had time to react, he’s gone, leaving me with my panties and leggings around my ankles.
I gasp, my mind reeling, as I quickly pull them up and search for him. But he seems to have melted into the shadows.
9
Quill
Fourteen years old
Idon’t know what it is about me that wants to hurt her.
I’ve been battling that urge from the moment I first locked eyes on her in fifth grade. She was a skinny little thing with ugly round horn-rimmed glasses, about three times too big for her face. Between that, her thin, pale, freckled face and her bushy red hair, she looked like an insect.
I had to fist my hands at my side to resist the urge to march right up to her, grab those stupid glasses off her nose, and stomp them under my foot.
I felt the same way about the rest of her. I could crush her in my hand, smite the life out of her. I could destroy her without even breaking a sweat.
Fucking insect.
The urge was completely absurd. She hadn’t done a thing to me. I hadn’t even heard her talk yet, though I would, in the months to come, and every time I’d hear her chirpy, cheerful little voice, I’d want to drive a screwdriver straight through my skull.
I’d never felt such an urge before, and I had no idea what to do with it. People say psychopaths start by killing insects. I guess she’s my first insect. Does that make me a psychopath?
I have no idea. All I know is that when I saw Jax bully her, I took all my anger out on him. I beat him up, and she probably imagined I was some kind of hero. Instead of the real monster.
I know what Mom would have said. She’d have said I had acrush on her. Sometimes I’m glad Mom abandoned me so I don’t have to hear such asinine bullshit.
I’m stuck with Dad now, and I know better than to bring any of that up to him. Not that he’d care. But he’s always looking for reasons to kick my ass. And hearing the name of the poorest girl in town on my tongue would be reason enough. He wouldn’t even wait to hear the context.
Hey Dad, it’s fine. I don’t want to fuck her. I just want to kill her.
I did my best to avoid her all of fifth grade, because, as much as I wanted to kill her, I didn’t want to end up in jail. I breathed a sigh of relief when Dad put me in a private charter school instead of the public middle school she went to. But then, I nearly clawed my eyes out when I found out we’d be going to the same high school.
Her voice has always been like a cheese grater against my brain. All the more so because of how absurd it is for her to remain cheerful when she’s getting bullied left and right.
Even though we went to different middle schools, I spent every moment watching her come and go outside the building. My own school days were shorter, because the charter school had a lot of idealist ideas about how students learn best, but my grades didn’t increase. Only my dark obsession did.
Her round glasses seemed to grow along with the rest of her, and they made her look bug-eyed. By the end of middle school, she looked even more like an insect than on the first day of fifth grade, and I fucking hated her.
